"Be a first rate version of yourself than being a second rate version of somebody else"

Planning holiday can sometimes become a daunting task for consumers. The same was the case with Ashutosh Dwivedi, which led to MakeYouTravel. His story starts as a regular kid aiming to reach high altitudes of professional excellence. After completing his engineering in Electronics and Communication, he pursued Masters in Business Administration from IMI, Delhi. For the next seven years, he worked his way up gaining ample experience of leading cross functional /cross-regional teams, launching and branding products, formulation of strategies by working in top MNC banks.

By a time came in his life, when he exited his regular job and ventured to start his own online travel portal. According to his peer, he is highly motivated and customer-focused. He displayed strategic thinking far beyond his role and often takes on additional responsibilities to ensure the quality of output remained high. This was the same reason behind the success of Makeyourtravel which has emerged as one of the few strong players in online travel space acting as a one-stop shop for the traveller catering to all their travel needs.

Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.

We are a Fully bookable Online Travel Agency, offering Air Tickets, Hotel Booking, Group Tour, Fixed Departures and Customized Holiday’s, we also do MICE events.

What inspired you to build the above product/ service?

The idea struck me when once when I was planning a holiday and it turned out to be a nightmare from start to end. There was not one service provider which offered an end to end solution. Being a banker i was always hard coded to think to provide the best service to clients. This got me thinking of introducing the concept of relationship manager to travel industry. Hence, designed a product keeping in mind a travel relationship manager who takes cares of everything without any hassle and is a one stop shop for the clients

What is your life mantra?

Decide what’s best for you and go after it

What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?

Hiring and retaining quality staff.

Retooling your staff specially training them to keep in mind the service standards and service promise

How did you overcome those challenges?

Rigorous training and reinforcing positive behavior, rewarding the right behavior of staff which believed in our service mantra and recognizing them in the organization till everyone bought into the idea.

Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.

Till now have funded the business from personal savings.

How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain?

Creating an environment where our employees don’t work just for the money but for the enjoyment of work, everyone supports each other like family and has allowed us to create a bond which helps all of us to grow together.

Importantly our reward and recognition policy is extremely fair and transparent where performance is rewarded in a transparent manner.

According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?

1. Volition/ Internal drive

2. Focus and passion

3. Learn, Unlearn and relearn –repeat

Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?

Flipboard its a treasure trove for the interests you want to follow and to keep yourself updated about happening of the world.

Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.

Planning and starting my day early, and finishing the task i have started before moving onto the next.

Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.

Need to start multitasking, i am naturally inclined having single minded approach.

Answer in less than 50 words

One tip to success:

Focus and perseverance.Failures are the stepping stone to success so do not get disheartened with small failures, they should make you stronger.

One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:

Taking decision in haste

One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:

One need’s to be patient to get work done and its extremely important to execute your plans and it’s your people skills which can make or break you.

What are your plans for next 3 years?

We want to build a world class organization, with offices in all the metros also to have significant presence in the Indian Inbound Market

What are your top three getaway destinations?

1. Goa

2. Andamans

3. Singapore

Share a quote that inspires you the most.

“Be a first rate version of yourself than being a second rate version of somebody else”.

Also this quote puts everything in my life in perspective – ” This too shall pass”